The present invention relates to magnetic resonance scanning, and more particularly, to automated magnetic resonance scan prescription for optic nerves.
Magnetic Resonance (MR) is a well known technique for imaging internal organs of a patient. MR scanners are typically capable of generating cross-sectional images in any plane of the body, including oblique planes. Accordingly, the MR volume data resulting from MR scans can have many possible orientations. In MR scanning, planning is needed in order to determine the orientation and position of the scanning volumes. In a typical MR brain scan process, an MR operator first acquires scout/localizer images by a short time sequence. The operator then manually plans a diagnostic scan from the scout images. The diagnostic scan is an MR scan that results in higher quality MR images than the scout images, such as high-resolution 3D MR images. The plan for the position and orientation of the diagnostic scan is referred to the prescription. The operator can plan diagnostic scans from the scout images using anatomic landmarks. However, different hospitals, departments, and operators many use different anatomic landmarks to plan the scanning. Even when the same anatomic landmarks are used, the scanning can be executed inconsistently, due to inter- or intra-operator variation. This can cause variations in the position and orientation of various MR scans, resulting in inconsistent anatomy display in diagnostic MR images, which can lead to problems with diagnosis when using MR images generated from MR scans. Thus, an automated and consistent MR scan prescription is desirable in clinical MR scanning applications.